Gregory left an interesting comment on a previous post. He had an interesting disclaimer and a question, lets deal with the question first.

I am on holiday and won't be able to access a Windows box for a while so if someone could actually try this and let me know how it works out then that would be very helpful.

> Do you know of a step by step tutorial for at least loading MPlayer and all of its prerequisite software for Windows XP?

As well as not having access to a Windows box at the minute, I have never used Mplayer on Windows (when I have been forced to use Windows I have tended to listen to music with VLC) , but I would start by downloading the Windows binaries from the mplayer homepage. It has a command line version and a GUI version also, so download both versions and see what you like best.

There are also User created packages that might be helpful.

For both versions, download the zip, extract the files and click on the exe file. There are three files that end with .exe . gmplayer in the GUI version is the graphical version which I assume is obvious how to use so I won't mention it again. The command line version has mplayer.exe which is the player, and mencoder which is the file encoding/recoding tool.

So follow this guide for how to use the command-line mplayer, and this for memcoder. It being Windows, do not forget to add .exe to the commands.

So the plan is that you would just open a DOS box (on XP it was Start then Run then type cmd then press Enter) then you type mplayer.exe filename to play a song or a video.

Path problems?

I do not claim to be a Windows expert (post Windows 98 at least), but for some reason I seem to know more than many Windows users - in the sense of know thine enemy ;).

One horrific limitation of the Windows XP command line is that it has no automatic path management, (or if it has then it is completely dumb), you often have to do this manually yourself via the Control Panel for every command line tool that you install. Yet another reason why Windows is a woeful exuse for an Operating System. Since at least the last couple of years, Linux is easier to use than Windows, especially if you try to go beyond typing a letter.

Therefore, you need to add the location of mplayer to the Windows path in order to be able to call mplayer.exe from any directory (which is what you need).

Lets assume you are a tidy boy and have put the files in C:Program FilesMplayer. Therefore I would create a variable called MplayerPath which corresponds to C:Program FilesMplayerthen add this variable to the PATH variable. Windows experts will know what to do already.

For people using Windows without really knowing anything about it, I provide an explanation below. If you are in this category, consider switching to Linux. Windows is really horrible when you get into it and changes from one bad design to another so often that you waste time learning about it; compare the fact that knowledge learned in the 1970s about Unix will still be useful for a Linux system in 2007 - good design is timeless.

Adding Mplayer to your PATH environment variable

The PATH environment variable is a list of directories (and other variables), separated by semicolons (';'). PATH is searched each time a command, executable or script is invoked without an absolute path.

So the plan is to add a new variable to your path. Note the emphasis on add, if you delete what is already there then all hell will break lose, and you may even have to reinstall Windows. So do not do this in a rush. Note. If you are heavy handed and kill your system or cause the end of the world as we know it then it is your own fault. It is at your own risk. If you pay attention then you probably will not cause any problems but do not blame me if you are an idiot and remove other things from your path.

Here is how it works on Windows XP. The 2000, NT versions should be similar, while older Windows are completely different. I have no idea how Vista works.

1. Press the Start button, click settings and open the Control Panel.

   Next open the ‘System’ dialog.

2. Switch to the Advanced tab, then click on the Environment Variables

   button at the bottom.

3. This brings up another dialog. Within System Variables, click on New.

4. In the New System Variable dialog, enter the following values:

• Into Variable name enter MplayerPath
• Into Variable value enter C:Program FilesMplayer

5. Press OK. Here comes the fun part. You need to add this new variable

   to your system path. Basically the different entries in the path are separated by semicolons. In the next step you will need to add your new variable into the list. So if the last entry does not end with a semicolon then add one now.

6. Now type the variable %MplayerPath%. Notice that it has a %percent

   sign% at the %start% and at the %end%. Then press okay, Windows may think for a little while, unless your computer is very new, then it might think quicker then you notice!